Behind the Lines
by cupid-painted-blind
Summary: [been done before but whatever. HBP compatable] Short stories from the eyes of ignored characters, explaining why they act and react to the circumstances they can't quite control.
1. Part One: Caught by a Shadow

**(A/N: It's been done before, but whatever. Review if you like.)**

Behind the Lines  
_Part One: Caught by a shadow_

Call me stupid, vain, annoying, obsessed, whatever you like, but I was in love with him. No one thought so, everyone just said, "Oh there's that girl who's obsessed with Harry Potter, she's annoying." I endured it and kept trying to get him to see me. My friends didn't really help as much as they thought they had.

The thing is, I was caught by a shadow and a whisper of someone I kind of knew I'd never have. I wanted the one thing I couldn't touch, and that was Harry. He was everything I had ever dreamed of in a person, handsome, chivalrous to a fault, handsome, good at magic, smart, single, good at quiddich, popular, handsome…

I fell in love from a distance, watching as he kissed that Ravenclaw and even Ginny. I couldn't quite find it in my heart to hate her for it, though; Ginny was nice. I can't pretend it didn't hurt. And when he went to the dance with Lovegood… That one hurt even worse.

The chocolate cauldrons, they were a dare. I didn't actually expect him to fall for it. If he did, then I don't think I would have been able to stand it. I couldn't have just taken what I could get, no, if he doesn't love me himself, then I suppose he shouldn't love me at all.

So don't say I've never made any sacrifices.

I almost—almost—joined the DA last year, but for some reason, I don't think I would have been able to pull it off. I'm not really particularly good at magic, and I somehow doubt that You-Know-Who is going to come after someone like me. Besides, I wouldn't have been able to concentrate, not with Harry there to distract me the whole time.

Still, even though I knew I'd never have him, I wish I could. He's more like a dream, a sort of far-off fantasy. I kind of wish that maybe You-Know-Who would kidnap me or something and Harry would rush to my rescue and fall madly in love with me and take me away to someplace far away where You-Know-Who doesn't exist and, I dunno, marry me? Make passionate love to me?

I'm getting ahead of myself…

I was in love with him, though. But he didn't see love, he saw an annoying girl who followed him like a sick puppy, dreaming rather than hoping he'd love her back.

I loved him.


	2. Part Two: Forgotten Fairytales

**(A/N: Wow, I got a review. That's never happened to me on here before. Here's another one.)**

**Behind the Lines  
**_Part Two: Forgotten Fairytales_

It wasn't supposed to be this way. I was supposed to be happy now, happy. Not lying anguished on a step in some district of London. I was supposed to be with him, not alone, not afraid, not in pain.

He was supposed to wake up and love me. He wasn't supposed to wake up and run back home, spouting about enchantments and an insane woman who kept him under her control. I didn't control him. I made him love me.

For such a short time, everything was sugarcoated and deliriously happy. He would tell me sweet things about how good a person I really was and even though I felt a little guilty, I was ecstatic. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, the poor girl in the crummy house stuck with an abusive father and a crazy brother. I had something wonderful in the palm of my hand.

It was a fairytale. A fairytale. I was living with Prince Charming, who had rescued me, the damsel in distress, from the horrible wizard who kept me locked up and chained in a little house near Little Hangleton. Locked up and chained with a locket and a dress.

I suppose to him, I was the evil witch who kept Prince Charming away from the woman of his dreams.

But why couldn't he see? I was hopelessly and utterly in love with him, and he ran away as soon as I stopped force-feeding him his love for me. He ran away and never glanced back, not even for the son he probably doesn't recall.

I suppose the man in the shop is happy. I sold him a priceless artifact for 10 measly galleons. It was hateful to me, and I've been in desperate poverty for too long. The baby is about to be born, and I have to find a way to help him live some sort of life. I've been forced to spend most of it for food.

I should have held out for more, but I don't have the energy to fight for anything anymore.

My fairytale is lying forgotten on the street corner and I'm lying trapped on a step, clutching 3 lifeless galleons and wondering how I'm going to survive tomorrow.

He was supposed to wake up and love me, not wake up and run back to his home, claiming that he had been under an evil sorceress's enchantments. He was supposed to wake up and love me. My life was supposed to be happy, now I'll be lucky if my life goes on to tomorrow.

It wasn't an enchantment anyway, it was a potion. There's a difference. A potion is more romantic. Being slipped a love potion and having the woman who did it fall madly in love with you so she takes it off and you realize her love for you is so much better than a simple spell for love. A spell is just a word and a little magic. A potion, that has a life of it's own.

Kind of like a fairytale.


	3. Part Three: Bittersweet

**(A/N: Uh, wow. I hadn't really thought much of this, but I suppose people like it, huh? I almost did Horace Slughorn but I wasn't happy with that so here's Umbridge. I gave her a bit of a different characterization than the book did.) **

**Behind the Lines**  
_Part three: Bittersweet_

The ministry is very good to people like me. I have more ambition than heart, and more bitter than sweet. I wasn't always like this, but I've had to make myself dispassionate to escape a lot of things, not the least of which is fear.

I'm always afraid. Always. I close my eyes and I see green, the green of a sudden death, the green of a curse I can't stop. It happened to so many people I knew, it won't happen to me. It won't.

But this little boy with eyes as green as death keeps saying that he's back, he's back, and Cedric Diggory was murdered by that green. What does he hope to gain? Attention? Admiration? Respect?

It seems like so many people are taken in by his lies, but I won't believe it. It isn't going to happen because he isn't coming back. He isn't back; he's dead. Dead as Cedric Diggory, dead as James Potter, dead as Armando Dippet.

People who are dead don't come back to life, and it isn't funny to claim that they have. The ministry won't be able to handle it if he ever comes back so he won't.

I know that most people don't really enjoy my presence. I'm far too sarcastic and my voice is far too honeyed and sweet to be truthful. And it isn't. I don't talk like I used to because I used to speak with fear marking every syllable, fear creeping into every word I said. If I have to sugarcoat my voice until it sounds as bittersweet as poisoned honey to disguise my terror, I will.

Nothing will shake the ministry down, because if it falls, so do I. And I've come too far from being a sniveling and terrified woman in the midst of a war to turn back now. I won't falter, I won't fall, I won't die like they did.

My life is everything to me, and surviving is what I'll do no matter what it takes. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is not back because he's dead and dead people don't return from the grave to wreak havoc in the Ministry and turn lives upside down. It doesn't happen like that.

Life has been bitter before, but now it's sweet. Now the poison has receded and the honey remains. Cedric Diggory died in a tragic accident while trying to win glory for himself and his house. He wasn't killed by a dead man. He couldn't have because dead men don't come back to life and don't torment the living and kill people who get in his way.

Dead men stay dead. He's not coming back.


	4. Part Four: What I wouldn't give

**(A/N:hands out hugs and kisses and chocolate chip cookies to all reviewers and people who have been reading: Y'all make life amazing.)**

**Behind the Lines**  
_Part Four: What I wouldn't give_

I'm not really as dumb as everyone claims. I actually have a bit of a brain; it's just that I don't really need it. No one ever asks me questions, no one ever assumes that I'll know an answer, no one ever challenges what I know or don't know.

I'm not stupid. I know that the Potter boy is everything I'm not. He's handsome, probably popular at that school he goes to, smart, and, most of all, he has magic.

I would kill for magic.

But I don't have anything of the sort. Magic is for interesting people like Harry, not for the bullying fat kid whose parents fawn all over him. Magic isn't reserved for people like me. I go to the boring school and wear old-fashioned uniforms while _he_ goes to a magical school and wears robes and has a wand and spellbooks and a broomstick. I know because I've seen his trunk with all his school things packed in it. What I wouldn't give to own a trunk like that, to have a wand and an owl that takes my letters to my friends.

Every now and then, I have to remind myself that I don't want to be him so much. I mean, his parents were murdered and he got picked on as a kid. His life can't have been much fun. So I was doing the teasing. I didn't envy him then.

But I do now. He really is perfect compared to me. He doesn't huff around and get stuck in chairs. He doesn't have people too afraid to speak to him but not afraid enough to keep from laughing at him behind his back. He doesn't get forced to wear bow ties or dinner jackets when Aunt Marge or anyone else comes over. He gets to sit in his room with his owl and his magic, while I have to sit there and listen to everyone making boring small talk and daydreaming about what I'd do if I were Harry James Potter.

I'm not as dumb as everyone claims. I know how mum and dad think of Harry, but I also know how everyone else does. I know that mum and dad are a little blinded by their envy. The same way I'm blinded.

I saw something last year that made the whole world go blacker than anything I'd ever seen before. Harry called it a dementor and he said only magical people could see them. I could see it all; I could see my whole miserable life played out before my eyes, every envious, non-magical second.

My envy, my deadly sin, has rotted my life away, so that everything I've done so far has become my worst memories, my worst moments. Because I don't go to a school that teaches magic, because I don't have a wand or a spellbook, because I don't have an owl to carry my post or a godfather who can curse the world away if that's what it takes to help me. Because I'm not Harry Potter, I can't enjoy my life.

What I wouldn't give to just be him.


	5. Part Five: Morsmordre

**A/N: This one is a character we know very little about. See if you can guess who.)**

**Behind the Lines**  
_ Part Five: Morsmordre_

The mark burns, a grim and sometimes painful reminder of what I've gotten myself into. I fight and I watch friends die, and I kill, and I'm not always sure of what I'm doing. I know where I am and what I've done and even why most of the time, but every now and then I have to wonder if I've done the right thing.

I don't believe in immortality. I don't believe in the Dark Lord's getting it, either. I agree with the purification of the wizarding race, but I don't see how his becoming immortal will get us there.

He's certainly done a good job of killing a lot of muggles and mudblood filth, but we've had heavy casualties just like they have. And there's a lot more of them than there are us. I can't deny it. The purebloods, while being more ruthless and stronger, are losing by sheer lack of numbers.

I come from a long line of purebloods, I was sorted into Slytherin, I carry the Dark Mark and I've been fortunate enough to mingle with such people as the Black family and the Malfoys, two of the strongest and most prominent pureblood families in today's world. But even with the formidable merits of Lucius and Bellatrix, I don't see how we're going to pull this off.

Granted, we have killed a few of theirs. The Prewetts, Bones, McKinnon. But they've gotten some of us, too. Add to that the Dark Lord's disregard for anything that stands in his way, including us…

I don't think we'll win.

But I've found it doesn't matter what I think. It matters what I _do_. And what I've done is exactly what's asked of me: I've killed, I've cursed, I've done nothing wrong, I've done nothing that will make him dispose of me like he did Regulus.

Regulus was a fool, anyway. Weak and afraid, he tried to get me to go along with him, to run. I told him no. I didn't tell the Dark Lord, though; I figured if Regulus thought he could make it alone he could try. Apparently he couldn't. Not that he was much of a loss.

I don't believe in immortality, so I know I'll die someday. Honestly, though, I'd rather die at the hands of some Auror than at the hands of my own master. At least then they'd know that I have the backbone to do finish what I start, no matter how right or wrong it was.

I don't know what the future has for someone like me; I don't shine like Bellatrix and I haven't fallen like Regulus. I'm the random Death Eater you can't find in a crowd. I could tell you everything about me and you'd probably never guess my allegiance.

The mark burns on my arm, a grim reminder of what I've done and what I'll do tomorrow and the next day and the next. I know what I've gotten myself into, and I know where it'll take me, so long as I'm willing to go. I'm willing to die for my Lord, but I never said anything about agreeing with him.

I don't believe in immortality.


	6. Part Six: Heroes

**(A/N: Thanks to _midnight-vortex _for suggesting this character. Loves and kisses all around. Review if you like.)**

Behind the Lines  
_Part six: Heroes_

I'm not a hero. Heroes are people like Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, not me. I'm not strong, I'm not brave, I'm not pretty, and I'm not a hero.

I'm just the little girl with the bad acne who gets mediocre grades and gets laughed at by the heroes who are so much more than she could ever be. But I take it all, and though I've tried a few drastic measures (thank God Madam Pomfrey managed to fix my nose back on after that curse), I'd like to think that I'm a better person for what I've been through.

It's a bit depressing, really. I grew up reading stories of magic, like Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia and other fantasy tales, and when I got my letter, I was so happy. I'd live a life like the ones I used to read about, I'd have magic and cast spells, and maybe I'd be able to save a world from an evil tyrant.

But not for me. I brush with heroes every now and then, every time I see Harry Potter or the headmaster, but I'm not one of them. I couldn't even pass my Potions OWL. I imagine that if Aragorn had taken Snape's class, he would have passed it. Aragorn isn't afraid of anything.

I could live with the "not being a hero" thing, if at least I had friends and at least one admirer. But I guess the wizarding world is just like back home in some ways. No one saw me there, either.

But I take it all, and I keep a bright smile on my face, and hope that someday, when all hope is lost, Harry or Ron or someone will call out to _me _for help and I'll be able to stand up save the day like Superman. Well, Superwoman. Or Wonderwoman. I always liked Wonderwoman. With that lasso of truth and all that power, no one could ever put her down.

But Wonderwoman is a hero, and Eloise Midgen is a little witch with acne and bad grades.

Of course, even with bad grades, I could have been a hero. Look at Neville Longbottom! He makes terrible grades in everything but Herbology, and he's a friend of Harry Potter and he had a date to the Yule Ball and he's helped fight in the war.

It isn't fair that some people should get all the glory and some people should get all the fame and some people should have all the power. But that's life, isn't it? That's heroism.

But wouldn't it be great if I could be a hero like they are? If I could save the day or destroy You-Know-Who in some crazy coincidence, like in those stories where the last person you would have ever expected to save the world is the one who does it?

If I could be a hero. Wouldn't that be great?


	7. Part Seven: Gryffindor Red

**(A/N: I forgot to clarify who Chapter 5 was to the general public. Evan Rosier. My bad, sorry. And I stole the line about the heroes and legends from the move _The Sandlot, _though I did change it a bit so I don't look like a total sellout. I don't own it, though it'd be nice if I did. That applies to both the line and a copy of the movie. This character could be two people, but whatever. And it's rather morbid, sorry. Review if you like.)**

**Behind the Lines **  
_Part seven: Gryffindor Red_

I'm a Gryffindor, my brother is a Gryffindor, my sister is a Gryffindor, my father was a Gryffindor, my grandfather was a Gryffindor. It's what defines me and guides me, the traits I show for it. I'm brave, headstrong, and I believe that there are things worth dying for.

My family is deeply involved in the fight against Voldemort. Every day, there are more deaths and more destruction, and I've already seen my father die at a Death Eater's hands. I'm already so deeply enmeshed in this that I don't even remember why I feel so strongly against it. I fight because it's in my blood and because it's as much a part of me as my hand. I fight because, frankly, I wouldn't be able to stand not fighting.

It seems like such a terrible thing to do, even worse than being evil; not fighting. At least the Death Eaters have strength in their convictions, enough that they're willing to fight for them. But someone who doesn't fight, someone who hangs back and thinks that they can just ride on other people's achievements, that look up to a hero and call him wonderful while relying on them and sleeping soundly in their beds, thinking that they aren't needed. It's to avoid being someone like that that I fight.

It's so typical of a Gryffindor, they say. We just jump out in a glorious charge, screaming our war song and selling our lives dearly, anything to take another bad guy with us. We're the heroes, and we stain the ground red with blood when we take them down with us.

We stain the ground Gryffindor red.

And we're all heroes; it's the defining trait of a Gryffindor. But I want to be more than a hero. I want to be a legend. Because heroes get remembered, sure, but legends… Legends never die.

If I have to go down to the Death Eaters, if they kill me, I'd like it to take more than one, you know. Because no one will remember if you don't leave anything but a body to commemorate that someone fought here, something huge happened at this site. But they'll remember if you leave a body and a few other cloaked bodies and a story of a man who fought like hell and died like a hero, ready to stain the ground with blood the color of the life he forged for himself. They'll remember if it took 5 or 6 Death Eaters to kill me, and that's what I want.

I want to stain the ground Gryffindor red when they kill me, then they'll have to say that no matter how much of a blood traitor I may be, they're glad they don't have to face me again. They'll have to remember that it's a defining trait of Gryffindors: We don't go down without a fight.

Because heroes and legends are made by fighting and blood and red and if it takes a kamikaze blast, a divine wind, to cement me into legend-dom, then that's what I'll do.

I'll stain the ground Gryffindor red.


	8. Part Eight: Behind the Lines

**(A/N: I have the attention span of a mouse in a room full of cheese, and this is passing below the radar now, so, to avoid having any craptastic-chapters-of-death-and-untimely-destruction, this is the last chapter. I was going to go on to twelve, but I couldn't get into any of the other characters' heads, and I'm not entirely sure I got into this one's… Anyway, review if you like.)**

Behind the Lines   
_Part Eight: Behind the Lines_

I've spent a lot of time in shadows. I live in the shadow of my brother and the shadow of another building and the shadow of a name. No one ever remembered me, no one thought to ask my name. If they had, oh, they would have held me to such a higher esteem.

I once fought a war because my brother needed help. I stayed behind the lines and listened into conversations and let people chalk it up to Dumbledore's hunches. He always thanked me, and he always helped me stay in business and he'd always send me a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

I love Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.

I once fought a war because I live in a shadow. I stayed behind the lines and no one knew my name. They've only met me once and they've only seen me around, I'm a familiar face but they can't recall from where.

I still listen into conversations, but there's no one to tell them to anymore. My brother fought a war and died for a cause I never really believed in. I spend a life in the shadows; I've never struck out and made something for my own, not even a belief. I fought because I was asked to, nothing more.

I still listen, though, but not many people actually go out anymore, and I'm getting old and starting to fray at the edges, and my business is almost scraping the ceiling of Hades, and not many people care, not even the ones who used to.

My brother used to be a lot to me, he protected me and kept me whole by never telling my name. Much as I'm indebted to him for it, I haven't forgiven him for it either. Because I was never given a way to believe in anything more than the things I was asked to believe in, because it was assumed that I would follow where he treaded, I could never make anything of myself.

But it doesn't matter anymore; the mistakes of a dead man are wiped away and forgotten, and all that remains are the good things he did, the righteous, the amazing. All that's left are words on a stone detailing the great things Albus Dumbledore did with his life, and they won't mention that he stifled a man's pointless future. It wasn't all his fault, and he did have good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with those. And the lines of war are painted with them.

I hide behind good intentions and strict lines and listen into conversations because no one knows who I am or how dangerous I could have been. I hide behind the lines and stay in the shadows because I can't fight on my own; I don't have anything to fight for.

I once fought a war because of good intentions. I hid behind the lines and no one asked my name.


End file.
